Regreening Africa Team
Symphony of
Science and
Practice: Bringing
evidence to bear
for land restoration
practice and policy
in Africa
www.regreeningafrica.com

Slido Poll.
web address, event code
and session room name to be added
Where are you joining from?
What is your experience of the
effectiveness of science, practice and
policy working together?

Questions guiding the session
1. What are the most promising ways of melding multiple
tools and approaches to deliver, support and monitor
restoration?
2. How can we better integrate science, practice and
policy to scale up impactful restoration interventions
across Africa’s drylands?
3. How can science more effectively share evidence with
stakeholders to boost their ability to take better and
more inclusive land restoration decisions?

Session outline

Mieke Bourne
Regreening Africa Programme Manager

Land degradation is affecting
3.2 billion people globally
(IPBES, 2018)
Over 65% of
Africa’s agricultural
land is degraded
Africa
context

Action 6 in the Strategy: invest in research
“Scientific understanding of how to restore and adapt
ecosystems is still developing. Considerable
investments are needed to identify the best practices
to restore our planet – one plot at a time.”
An urgent need to
understand best practices

Challenge
Why is evidence, brought from research, monitoring,
community and other stakeholders not well integrated
into practice and policy to achieve large scale restoration
success?

What is needed
Generation of appropriate, actionable and
robust evidence
Evidence that is easy to interpret, timely
and readily accessible
Structured stakeholder engagement,
which enhances integration of evidence in
planning, implementation and policy

Research In Development – scaling context based action research
Integrating research into implementation while providing realtime feedback from and with farmers, development
partners and policy makers

Regreening Africa – an example of a research in
development programme approach

Regreening Africa
500,000 households,
across 1 million hectares
in eight countries in Sub-
Saharan Africa.
By incorporating trees
into croplands,
communal lands and
pastoral areas,
regreening efforts make
it possible to restore
Africa’s degraded
landscapes.

A unique programme structure

Restoration practices and reach by September 2020
Senegal
29,707
Households
reached
64,097
Hectares
achieved
Mali
38,090
Households
reached
81,675
Hectares
achieved
Ghana
24,898
Households
reached
53,891
Hectares
achieved
Niger
30,744
Households
reached
55,092
Hectares
achieved
Key
Nursey
FMNR
Soil & water
conservation
Tree
Planting
Rwanda
40,998
Households
reached
36,573
Hectares
achieved
Kenya
17,868
Households
reached
19,129
Hectares
achieved
Somalia
6,834
Households
reached
3,058
Hectares
achieved
Ethiopia
98,823
Households
reached
105,825
Hectares
achieved
421,659 hectares
291,378 households

Multiple evidence sources to inform restoration practice

Niger
FMNR/ANR Decree
Kenya
Agroforestry Strategy Kenya
supported
National Restoration Conference
Ethiopia
Watershed and Agroforestry
Multi-stakeholder platform and
agroforestry strategy supported
Free-grazing focus
Rwanda
Agroforestry
Taskforce
operationalisation
Mali
Bring lessons from
Niger on the FMNR
decree
Somalia
Integrate regreening/
restoration in government
programmes and policies
Bringing evidence into policy and supporting policy
processes across 8 countries
Ghana
Develop a northern
regions restoration
plan
Senegal
Broadcasting of updated
forest code
Link to Agroecology

Case study Kenya

Case study Niger

Poll 2
What sources of information do you
use as evidence in your decision
making?

Types of Evidence

Evidence on land health and the Regreening App
Tor-G Vågen, Senior Scientist SPACIAL

Integrating uptake survey results
Judith Oduol, Senior Agricultural Economist

Uptake Surveys
Purpose:
Generate evidence on adoption indicators
Identify high and low performing areas and regreening practices
# of households up
taking new
regreening practices
# of hectares where new
regreening practices are
being applied
1
2
To inform implementation, management
decision making, planning and donor reporting

Lot Quality Assurance Sampling technique
Useful in
evaluating
What do
we need?
Decision Rule=
Threshold
Performance of
programme areas
Performance of
interventions
1
2
• Statistically determined
Sample size
• Households: 19
to 21 per Lot
• Desired adoption or
exposure rate 67%
• High performance if 14/21
or 13/19 households are
practising in a Lot

Use of uptake survey results to
inform implementation in Rwanda
• Direct management
attention to low
performing areas
• Learn lessons from
high performing areas

How effective are the scaling models?
High rates of
uptake among
HHs reached
High rates of
exposure in
Rwanda

Identifying and addressing
country specific challenges
• Low exposure rates- review of
scaling approaches
• Integration of trees with crops-
demonstration plots to demystify
beliefs about trees and crops
• Low exposure rates
• Low levels of achievements against the
target- review of implementation strategy
• Low tree density- provision of enabling
environment for tree planting to diversify
regreening practices • Low tree species diversity-
Involvement of policy makers
to find sustainable solution
Kenya
Rwanda
Senegal

Nursery data application to improve practices
Sammy Carsan, Agnes Gachuiri, Grace Koech

Data Needs: Improving Tree Nursery Performance
Farmer
interests
Risks,
Inputs,
Markets
Stakeholder
interests
Nursery
managers
capacities
Nursery
Goals
• Livilihoods
• Environment
• Community

Baseline
studies
(HH & farm
surveys)
Focus
Group
Discussions
Nursery
surveys
Regreening
App
Germplasm
use
records
Literature
reviews
Databases
Data/Evidence Capture Approaches

• Species prioritization & use asessments:
Common species on farms, product demand,
indigenouse vs exotics
• Diversifying nursery production
practices:
Diverse seed stocks supply/demos
Germplasm sources/exchange support/collaboration
• Improving seedling production
efficiencies (seeds, media, water, containers, best
practice)
• Strengthening local seedling supply:
technnical, orgaizationa & bussiness skills traings
Improving Implementation: Major Focus Areas

Good
management
practices
Quality seed
sourcing +
Propagation
issues
Nursery
entrepreneurship
Pest & disease
issues
Customized Training
Support:
local needs & circumstances

An approach to integrate actionable evidence
Constance Neely, Lead SHARED Hub

The SHARED Decision Hub is a collective of stakeholder
engagement, behavioural specialists and transdisciplinary
scientists.
The SHARED component works within Regreening Africa
to strengthen the linkages across science, practice and
policy.
Offering tailored facilitation and technical support across
the 8 countries, NGO implementors for inclusive, evidence
based decision-making.
Focuses on relationships, tailored engagement and breaks
down the complexity within the programme to sequence
these engagements and access to evidence to technically
backstop both the implementation learning and policy entry
points.

A reflective and learning process to
interrogate and integrate these multiple
evidence sources into practice and policy
With the complex nature of the program, with multiple implementors, 8 country contexts
and multiple supporting scientific components a novel engagement process was
designed – called the Joint Reflection and Learning meetings JRLM

Implementation
update
Interactive
evidence wall
Reflections on
scaling and
implementation
Policy
influencing
Regreening
Africa App
Land health
surveillance
Designing
amendments to
implementation
based on
evidence
interrogation
Field /
Implementation
experience
Using tools such as
outcome mapping to
clearly articulate
target stakeholders
for change and
process for
engagement
Practitioners, farmers, scientists, and decision makers work together through
structured engagement processes to interrogate and reflect upon evidence and
experience to plan for greater impact.

What it takes
Willing
development
and research
partners
Skilled
facilitators
structuring
and
facilitating the
dialogue
Time and
repetition
Closing the
learning loops

Implementing restoration activities

REVERSING LAND
DEGRADATION IN AFRICA
BY SCALING-UP EVERGREEN
AGRICULTURE
(Regreening Africa)
Presented by Alex Billy Mugayi, Country project manager
World Vision, Rwanda
Joint Reflection and Learning (JRL)
In land restoration initiatives

Bringing community and NGO
perspective to the JRLM
What has changed as a result of
JRL
Bringing research and practice
closer together
Presentation outline
1
2
3

Bringing community and NGO
perspective to the JRLM
For World Vision as coordinators of implementation, it is an opportunity to
share experience from different districts (contexts) of implementation.
For the community, it is an opportunity to share context specific experience.
1
2

What has changed as a
result of JRLMs
Project team able to look back on annual progress,
communities express their gratitude and concerns, the
project is reviewed, and a clear roadmap of actions is agreed
upon for project success.
A common understanding is built for the project team on
completed studies and their meaning/contribution to overall
project implementation.
Alterations are made through a consultative/participatory
approach to better achieve project objectives.
Government officials can look into the details of the project
(with the project team) and its progress to check if it is still
aligned to government priorities; and suggest accordingly.
This adds to the National Oversight and Coordination
Committee.
o The planning process has become
much more consultative/
participative than before.
o Increased ownership and
accountability.
o Adjust implementation as a result of
the process e.g. tree species
diversity.
o JRL notes and reports are key
reference documents for community
centered planning.
o Alignment with national objectives
and targets.
o Policy influencing.

Bringing science/research and practice
closer together
Project scientists go down on the field to see the
applicability of their scientific proposals in the
communities.
Making the science more accessible and
demystified to the implementers and the
community. Data has been presented to
implementing team (NGOs and the community).
Farming community gets a unique chance to
interact with the scientists on the success and
challenges of scientific proposals.
Lessons learnt are documented to be capitalized
on in subsequent project planning process.
Science solving the real problems affecting
communities.
Appreciation of scientific work and its effective use in
solving restoration challenges.
An opportunity to develop proposals addressing
community challenges.
Building evidence which informs future interventions.

GLOBAL LANDSCAPE
FORUM (GLF)
Présentateur : Mamadou Fotigui Coulibaly,
Regreening Africa Manager, Mali, Oxfam
REGREENING AFRICA PROJECT
MISSION CONJOINTE DE REFLEXION ET
D’APPRENTISSAGR (JRLM)
3 Juin 2021

• Mission participative
• Recueil d’informations et de données
en vue d’améliorer les interventions du
projet
• Phase terrain et phase de discussions
interactives
Definition, objectifs,
conduite du processus

Xxxxxx
xxxxxxxx
Importance du JRLM
Les JRLM permettent une bonne
comprehension des:
• Succès;
• Opportunités
• Defis/Contraintes
• Apporte des solutions idoines aux
difficultes liées à la pratique des
technologies de reverdissement
• Renforce la collaboration entre
producteurs et chercheurs

Lecons
apprises
• Les Producteurs Leader
Formateurs
• Les messages radio

Recommandations
• Poursuivre les missions JRLM
• Veiller à la mise en oeuvre des
recommandations issues des JRLM
• Favoriser une collaboration étroite
entre Producteurs, chercheurs et
agents de Développement

Interactive Discussion

Interactive Discussion
What are the biggest
limitations to
incorporating science
into implementation
action?
What can be done to
better integrate
science, practice and
policy?
Please share examples of effective integration of
science and development that you know of or have
been involved with.

Reflections on scaling
Bernard Crabbé
Head of the environment mainstreaming &
circular economy sector at the European
Commission, Directorate General for
International Partnerships (INTPA).
Alexandru Ghiurca
International Partnerships, INTPA F2:
Environment, Sustainable Natural
Resources

Closing remarks

Visit our website: www.regreeningafrica.org
Drop us an email: regreeningafrica@cgiar.org
Like our Facebook page: Regreening Africa
Follow us on Twitter: @RegreenAfrica
Thank You! Merci! Asante!